The Shaven Crowhttps://shavencrow.wordpress.com
I write. Deal with it.Sun, 18 Mar 2018 20:45:45 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/ccea61ffbb3bcfceaf145197bb70f422?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngThe Shaven Crowhttps://shavencrow.wordpress.com
Disconnect/Reconnecthttps://shavencrow.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/disconnectreconnect/
https://shavencrow.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/disconnectreconnect/#respondTue, 26 Aug 2014 08:48:39 +0000http://shavencrow.com/2014/08/26/disconnectreconnect/Continue reading →]]>It seems to me that when we lose a loved one, we disconnect. There is an obvious break in communication with that person. We may still talk to them, but there is no response. It’s like speaking into a telephone and waiting for a reply but getting that silence on the other end, not being able to see facial expressions, to read the body language of the recipient. Panic.

Too often we lose other people connected to the person we lost. This is particularly the case when it’s a female that is lost. People gravitate to matriarchal figures. Grandmothers almost hold court. My maternal grandmother ran something akin to a soup kitchen on Sundays. From nine in the morning my uncles and aunts turned up with their children and the house was filled with noise. Her whole weekend revolved around this event. Saturday morning she would shop for breast of lamb, mutton and oxtail. She would then boil it all up on the stove and place the whole pan in the oven. It seemed to be a bottomless pan. On Sunday morning Grandma was first up and her main job was to thicken and brown the stewed meat. The smell wafted around the house and one by one, family turned up. Not just blood family, but friends of my uncles, friends of my cousins. She stood in the kitchen serving ladle after ladle of ‘stewpot’ to hungry mouths. It was never served in a bowl, always a plate and never a fork, just a slice of bread to mop it up. I liked mine with pepper on.

It was the way we connected. Sundays at Grandma’s house. I saw most of my cousins every week. Grandma had seven children and that meant a lot of cousins. Her garden had a bit of a bank in it and we all sat there with our stewpot. Then we would run amok.

On my paternal side, it was different. But if I ever saw my cousins, it was at Nanna’s house. The matriarch, again. She was the person I learned most from in my life. All the crafts I do, she taught me. Baking cakes, she taught me. Loving, she taught me. When she died in 2011 she left a gaping hole in me. I felt that was it, the end of my family. I missed seeing all the things she had, her china, her wool stash, her jewellery, her cuckoo clock. She was a typical Nanna with lots of trinkets. I felt disconnected when she went.

A few weeks ago my Uncle asked me to go and see him. So myself and partner went for the weekend. One of his daughters and his son were there. We had a fabulous weekend of drinking, playing games, reminiscing. It meant so much to me I cannot find the words to express myself (a rarity!)

All around me were Nanna’s things. The things I used to associate with just her. I saw old photos I’d never seen before. I feel completely reconnected to my Nanna. She hasn’t gone. She lives on in my Uncle. Her cheekiness is in him. Her generosity is in him. When we left he gave us a bag of vegetables from his garden, which is exactly what my Granddad used to do, but where my uncle gave us fresh beetroot, Granddad would have given us tomatoes. Seeing their things in my Uncle’s house was like being transported back into Nanna and Granddad’s house, the place I loved to be the most as a child. The place I was often denied by people I have no connection with. But that’s another story.

]]>https://shavencrow.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/disconnectreconnect/feed/0shawcastleIt’s Results Dayhttps://shavencrow.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/its-results-day/
https://shavencrow.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/its-results-day/#respondThu, 21 Aug 2014 09:56:12 +0000http://shavencrow.com/2014/08/21/its-results-day/Continue reading →]]>Today is the day my daughter will pick up her exam results. She is at work and can’t pick them up until later. Already I am worried for her, thanks to the press reporting that this year’s are the worst results for a while. Well when they go up year on year, eventually something has to change, right? She had her next step all planned out: A’Levels in Sixth Form, place already confirmed. On the surface, she hasn’t looked worried. But last night she announced that next week she is going to the local college to find out about taking her A’Levels there. Why the sudden change of heart? I think she believes her results aren’t going to be good enough and has already decided she isn’t good enough to stay on at Sixth Form.

This is such a shame. In the German A’Level class there will be two students. That’s a fabulous student/staff ratio. Not to mention it’s closer to home, familiar to her and the pastoral care she has received at that school has been fabulous. It’s been more like an extended family. Sending a child to High School is a scary business and for someone like me, who didn’t have continuity of education, it’s a particular challenge. Finding a school that caters for their individual needs, personality quirks and individuality is a very intense process. Then supporting a child through five years of learning to spend every day with the same thirty children, their arguments, fallouts, parties, puberty. With the school we chose, I feel we got it right. I’m not expecting a stream of A*’s today. The reason for this is the amount of pressure my daughter felt was so intense I had to do something. She lacked confidence, felt she wasn’t good enough to be in the top sets because other children were better than her, had no self belief in her own intelligence. So we sat down together and talked about what was important. Which GCSE’s she really needed, and the grades she needed for sixth form. She doesn’t need a double science award, doesn’t ‘get’ science, cannot comprehend physics and has no desire to learn. I couldn’t understand this as I didn’t struggle with those subjects, but I could see it was causing her stress. So, rightly or wrongly, I told her not to waste time on them. She wants to follow a media career, how will Science benefit her? So she concentrated on German, maths, English, and saw her grades dramatically improve. She needs five passes at C and above, and if that’s what she gets, I will be deliriously happy for her as she can move on to the next step.

I don’t think people realise how hard it is to raise a child to be individual. I want my daughter to be confident, to embrace who she is, to enjoy life. And I think she does, on the whole. But the education system does everything it can to level children. It doesn’t embrace individuals. A National Curriculum is a ‘One Size Fits All’ kind of education and my girl is not a ‘One Size Fits All’ kind of kid. All children should be allowed to follow those subjects that capture their imagination. If a child doesn’t like art, and loves science, like my son, then they should be allowed to stop wasting time on a subject they hate and concentrate on the areas they flourish.

I spoke to my stepmother yesterday, when I was in Paperchase, and something she said led to a light bulb moment regarding why I struggle to put stuff out there.

I had posted something on Facebook about wanting to write and how my house was like Piccadilly Circus, thereby making writing impossible. She had just been here for the weekend with her partner and this made them (or him) think I had aimed the post at them. This was so far from the truth. I was more meaning the general day to day comings and goings of a house with teenage children. But I got to thinking about what she had said, I know, dangerous.

One of the reasons I delete so much stuff is because I fear offending people. I love my family, extended and otherwise, and would be mortified if I upset them. But actually, I can’t write without upsetting somebody. People will always speculate if a character is based on them, and in fact, it may be so! All characters are amalgamations of people writers have encountered. Also, this is my life, and as such, I have a right to write, right? So I’m afraid, people will just have to get used to this! I am a writer, I will write, and I will write what I like. Writing is cathartic, and I have a tremendous amount of pent up hurt to release. Whatever I write, someone will always think it is about them.

And I am really, really starting to hate Facebook.

]]>https://shavencrow.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/my-stumbling-block/feed/1shawcastleMy own writer’s blockhttps://shavencrow.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/my-own-writers-block/
https://shavencrow.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/my-own-writers-block/#commentsFri, 14 Feb 2014 10:46:31 +0000http://shavencrow.com/?p=9Continue reading →]]>I went into Hell yesterday, or as some of you would know it, Westfield. I’m not a natural shopper, I hate browsing with no money to spend but I had to go and collect a necklace for my son to give his girlfriend for Valentine’s Day. So whilst there, faced with a multitude of people scurrying back and forth, stopping dead in front of me with no warning, banging me with their bags and generally getting on my tits, I decided to take a timeout in my local branch of Paperchase and buy myself yet another notebook.

Rows and rows of notebooks stared back at me. London Underground Map covers seem to be the latest craze, or pastel owls. I thumbed and opened maybe a hundred books. A5, A4, A6. Cream pages and white pages. Lined, unlined, dark ruled, wide ruled, narrow ruled. Not one book was “the one”. Why does it have to be “the one”? Well, it needs to inspire me. I mean, it’s all about the book right? Every book had something wrong with it, but surely I just needed paper to write on, so the cover shouldn’t matter? I began to ask myself why I couldn’t find the right book. I don’t like white pages as they glare too much at me when they are blank. I therefore find it reasonable to only want cream pages. But the rest, such as the cover being too spotty, too embellished, too leathery, too new (!) makes no sense to me at all.

And then it hit me. I don’t know what inspires me. Shit, that’s scary. Someone who writes, who has no inspiration. No muse. So, still standing in Paperchase, I had to ask myself “Do you really want to write?”

Thankfully, the answer was yes. A resounding yes. But I still hadn’t bought a new notebook (which I don’t even need as I have about twenty unused notebooks at home). Then I started thinking about failing, how I am going to fail, and how I am going to cope when nobody wants to publish my book. And all the reasons why I fear failure came flooding in, but I will save them for another blog post on another day.

Where then, is my inspiration? When I thought about why I want to write, and what I want to write, I realised it is quite simple, really. It’s Life. My life, your life, their lives. Every single person on this planet has a history, and I like stories, real life stories.

My unfinished novel is just that, a story based on a real life. And, once I realised it doesn’t matter what it’s written on or in, I bought a notebook. Actually, three.

Well I was in there an hour!

]]>https://shavencrow.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/my-own-writers-block/feed/3shawcastleI write, I blog, I delete.https://shavencrow.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/i-write-i-blog-i-delete/
https://shavencrow.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/i-write-i-blog-i-delete/#respondTue, 11 Feb 2014 13:11:43 +0000http://shavencrow.wordpress.com/?p=3Continue reading →]]>And that’s about it, really. I write: something profound, pointless, tear jerking, funny, heart warming, stupid. I then blog, for a few days, weeks, sometimes stretching to a couple of months. Delete. All of it. I have no idea why. I find it cringey looking at how I thought then. Actually, I am just deleting me, my past, memories, mistakes, memoirs. Perhaps I will leave this here as a reminder.
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